


The Best Season And Friend

by camichats



Category: Marvel
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Different Personalities, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Marvel Trumps Hate 2019, Minor Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Minor Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, Puzzles, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Winter Soldier Focused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25473907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camichats/pseuds/camichats
Summary: Tony knew that Winter wasn't very talkative, but he had no idea that he was the only one who knew that the man existed.Or, Tony and Winter are best friends, and Winter is perfectly happy with that.
Relationships: Winter Soldier & Tony Stark
Comments: 18
Kudos: 341
Collections: Marvel Trumps Hate 2019





	The Best Season And Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [winter_angst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_angst/gifts).



> My MTH fic-- which took me way longer than I meant for it to >.> Anyways, my bidder wanted a Winter focused fic with a best friend in Tony :D

Tony was good at keeping secrets as long as he didn't know they were secrets. It's not like he _meant_ to go blabbing about people's personal affairs, but every so often he was distracted and it was relevant to the current topic so he said it without thinking-- and Pepper would get mad at him for telling Rhodey that she was switching her birth control so she needed a week off work while her hormones settled. And he sort of held that that was Pepper's fault because really, what had she expected from telling him? He'd teased her and then told Rhodey by accident, and then Pepper and Rhodey had to talk about it so they felt less awkward about the reveal. It had been all around bad, and there was only so much responsibility he could take for that. 

After Bucky got found and rescued from Hydra, and after they got rid of the brainwashing and after he spent a solid three months in therapy figuring out what he wanted to do with himself, he joined the Avengers. Most of them were fine with it right away, but Steve coddled him sometimes, worried that it was too much for him all at once. Natasha knew him as the cold and efficient Winter Soldier, and too often, she was tense and on guard around him. That, in turn, put Clint on high alert. One morning, Bucky'd had a butter knife in his hand as he passed by Natasha, and Clint stabbed clear through his palm without thinking about it. Coulson finally intervened with mandatory group bonding for them, and then Bucky was a fixture like he'd always belonged. Clint held that it would've been cool if the wound had scarred instead of healing over like it hadn't been there, because it would've made a great story at parties. 

Bucky and Tony were teammates. They got along alright, but they weren't going to be breaking any best friend records like Steve had done when he'd found out that Bucky was alive. They swapped nightmares when they ran into each other in the middle of the night, Tony made him upgrades, and Bucky brought him the most godawful Iron Man merchandise he could find. But they weren't exactly braiding each other's hair and talking about boys-- well, except that one time Tony did a french braid in Bucky's hair as he bitched about how smothering Steve had been acting, but that was only one time and it's not like Tony'd had much to say in response other than 'yeah it's annoying but he's scared shitless that he's going to lose you again'. 

Tony and Winter though, they were buds. He was easily Tony's best friend on the team. There was the trifecta of Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy that always held the spot for absolute best friends, but Winter was a near second place. Which, in retrospect, made it all the more strange that no one knew about Winter for a _while_. Well, no one else, that is. 

* * *

It was a completely uneventful day. Tony was hammering out some dents on an older chest plate that had been damaged when someone cut the power to Jarvis and DUM-E panicked. This was one of the older suits, so it had been pretty low on the priority list. Normally he wouldn't bother fixing it at all, but sometimes a lot of the suits were out of commission at once, and he'd rather be prepared than unarmored. He was a pretty fragile guy, all things considered. 

Bucky walked in while Tony was working on that, and it didn't look like he was there for a friendly chat so Tony set down the hammer and took off his work gloves. "Arm bothering you?" he asked, wiping at his forehead. 

He gave a curt nod. 

"Then take a seat Buckaroo, I'll get you fixed up." 

"I'm Winter, not Bucky," he corrected, moving towards the offered chair. 

Tony looked a little closer. Now that he mentioned it, the way he held himself was different-- and not the regular 'I'm in pain so I'm walking differently' way. His expression was different too. Again, not because he was in pain or because Bucky couldn't make different faces, but it was because he was a different person entirely. "Then get comfy Wonderland, this might take a minute." Tony wiped off more sweat and walked to the sink to wash his hands. "Have we met before?" 

"No, but I know who you are." 

"Everyone knows who I am, that's not an introduction. Tony Stark, call me Tony. Or Iron Man if Tony is too much of a strain for you." 

"Not Stark?" 

"Reminds me of my old man." 

"I remember him," Winter said. When Tony glanced at him, he had his head tilted up and was staring at the ceiling. "You don't like him." 

"We didn't really get along." Talk about understatement. Howard hated Tony's decisions and the designs he created, and Tony hated him for it. Howard made a hell of a mentor, but 'tough love' didn't actually work as a father/son relationship. 

"You hated him." It wasn't a guess. Winter said it like it was a fact. 

"I wouldn't say that," Tony lied. "More like I resented him. Absent rich father, neglected his poor little son's precious feelings, yada yada, oldest story in the book." Tony knew that it was the oldest story in the book because any time he tried to talk to someone about it, they had the air of ‘well yeah what else did you expect’. It was his first lesson in open secrets: people don’t talk about it, but they already know. It was definitely weird to be having this conversation with the man that killed him. Winter hadn't had a choice; he knew that and he doesn't blame him for anything, but it's still weird. 

"He hit you," Winter said, and Tony's hand jerked. 

Nobody had ever said the words to him before. Tony didn't tell anyone because who would care? Open secret. Besides, he'd had better things to do than think about Howard when he wasn't around. People had definitely known, and even now, Tony would wager most people knew, it just didn't matter anymore. But they never said it straight to his face, what the fuck? 

It didn't matter, he reminded himself. It was a fucking lifetime ago, and Howard was long dead. These days, when people heard 'Stark', they thought of Tony, not Howard. And Peter the other day had actually said, "Who's Howard Stark?" all innocently when Fury had mentioned him. The kid had probably been joking, but it made Tony's day. Howard had wanted a legacy; he'd found Tony wanting, but in the end it hadn't mattered. Tony had left a bigger impact on the world with Iron Man than Howard had ever accomplished with his whole life. 

"So what's wrong with the arm?" Tony asked, rolling a chair next to Winter. 

"Pinches in the shoulder," he answered, just as easily, as if they hadn't been talking about anything else. As if they hadn't been talking about one of the top five worst things about Tony's life. He hadn't said it to be cruel, and Tony knew that. Besides, it had been a long time ago, and like he said, everyone already knew. 

"Is it where the plates meet your skin or is it in the arm?" 

"It's in the arm." 

"Well the good news is that means I should be able to fix you up with no fuss. If there were normal human parts involved, I'd probably have to ask for help." He had a list of doctors he could call up for when that time came, but so far he hadn't needed it. "Get comfy Tasty Freeze, this'll take a minute." 

He nodded, and as far as Tony could tell, did as he asked and got comfortable. It didn't necessarily look like he relaxed, but he looked less like he was going to kill someone because he was angry. Maybe comfort looked different on people like him-- people of the assassin/spy persuasion. Clint wasn't a good yardstick to measure anyone else against, but when was the last time he'd seen Natasha relaxed and it hadn't been faked? Never, but he knew that she had to have relaxed at some point in the last few years. 

* * *

Winter would always visit at the oddest of hours. At first Tony had thought Winter was deliberately trying to scare him by being there before dawn poking DUM-E as much as the bot poked him. And then it turned out that no, Winter was just weird and _liked_ having poking matches with DUM-E in the middle of the night. Whatever makes him happy, Tony guessed, but Winter was a hard guy to read. The only evidence Tony had that the poking matches made him happy was the fact that he kept doing it. 

But one day Tony had to call it to halt because he actually needed the help in the lab. Winter drooped in a rather familiar fashion, so Tony grabbed the best (and closest) thing he could find and tossed it over. Winter caught the Rubik's Cube, looking at Tony with a puzzled expression. "It's a game," Tony explained. "You try and get each side a solid color, and when all sides are like that, you win. Hopefully it'll keep you entertained while DUM-E does some work for a change." 

Winter didn't respond, just looked at the toy with singular determination; he was going to solve this cube whether it wanted to be or not. He twisted and turned, and by the time DUM-E was free again, he hadn't made any progress. The look on his face could only be described as a pout. "It's broken," he muttered petulantly, fully aware that the toy was fine. 

"You'll figure it out eventually little elf," Tony said. 

"Elf," Winter repeated flatly. 

"Like a winter elf. Christmas elf," he added when that got no reaction. "No?" 

Winter shook his head, and Tony heaved a dramatic sigh. 

"Everyone's a critic. It's a miracle _any_ of you have friends, much less one as amazing as me." 

"You and DUM-E are my only friends," Winter said easily, as if that wasn't completely heartbreaking. 

"I consider you to be a friend," JARVIS chimed in, and Winter blinked in surprise. Or what Tony thought was surprise. Seriously, it was like trying to determine weather patterns from blowing out a candle. He was absolutely hopeless at this whole figuring-Winter-out thing. If it hadn't been for Winter saying they were friends two seconds ago, he wouldn't be too sure they were. It felt more like Winter liked the workshop and Tony happened to be there. 

"Me and the bots aside, I find that hard to believe. You're not the most talkative person I've met-" that spot would always be reserved for yours truly "-but you're pretty pleasant when you're not in pain." 

"Most people are," he grumbled. He looked so uncomfortable to be talking about this, his shoulders hunching up like he wanted to disappear from this conversation. 

"Didn't mean to make you worry about it," Tony said easily. "I just thought you should know that you have options if you want them." 

* * *

Winter came back every day for a week straight, and by the end of it, he'd solved the Rubik's Cube. He set it in front of Tony with an expectant look, and Tony grinned at him. "You figured it out." 

Winter nodded. 

Tony gave him a hug without thinking about it. He felt Winter tense, but instead of pushing him away or backing up, Winter tentatively raised his arms and hugged him back. After a moment, he decided the embrace was done, and he took one fluid step back, a blush staining his cheeks. Tony didn't tease him about it because the fact that he'd hugged back even for a second was a good sign. "Do you think you could do it again?" 

Winter's face set in determination. "Yes." 

"You sure?" Tony said, picking up the cube. 

He gave a curt nod. 

"If you're sure, Wonderland." Tony gave him another second to change his mind, but it didn't happen. Tony started twisting it, and after it felt suitably mixed up, he passed it to Winter. 

Winter took it from him, went to the couch and sat cross-legged, a look of concentration on his face as he started working on it. 

Tony turned back to his work, glancing at Winter every so often to see if he was getting frustrated. After a while though, Tony forgot to keep checking and got absorbed in the newest design for Steve's armor. He didn't realize he was hunching further and further over as time went on until Winter tapped him on the shoulder and he had to straighten. Tony groaned at the hints of pain in his back and twisted to get them to go away; it didn't work. Hovering right in front of his face when he turned to face Winter, was a newly finished Rubik's cube. "I guess once you figure something out, you've got it for life, huh." Tony took the cube from him, turning it over in his hand as if that was going to change the colors somehow. 

Winter was still looking at him expectantly, so Tony gave him another hug. This time, Winter hugged him back immediately. 

This was... different. Tony was used to touching people, but they usually didn't encourage it unless it was sexual. It was nice, he decided. It didn't last any longer this time, but the fact that Winter had (nonverbally) asked for it was a step in the right direction. Or what Tony thought the right direction might be. It's not like anyone bothered to explain things like that to him. "They've got some bigger Rubik's Cubes, if you're interested. Instead of three-by-three, four-by-four. I think I've also seen a five-by-five, but not bigger than that. Do you want me to order them for you?" 

Winter didn't say yes, but he also didn't say no. 

If it was anyone else, Tony would've waited for an answer, but Winter was still looking at him with an expression light enough that Tony figured it meant yes. Besides, was Winter used to expressing things he wanted not needed? Judging by the hug thing, Tony said, "I'll get you some, but it'll be a few days." 

Winter nodded in acknowledgment. 

"In the meantime, how do you feel about jigsaw puzzles?" 

Winter blinked, then tilted his head. 

Tony took that to mean I-don't-know-what-that-is. "It's uh, like a picture that's been put on cupboard and cut into pieces, and you try to put the pieces together to show the picture again. I think we've got a few of those, don't we, J?" 

"A few," the AI said drily, bringing up a picture of a dozen and a half puzzle boxes. 

Tony frowned. "Where did those come from?" 

"Agent Romanova enjoys them in her spare time. Shall I have one sent down for you?" 

Tony glanced at Winter and deciphered the expression as a yes. "Go ahead J, thanks. Now, where are we going to set you up? Can't do the floor, it's too dirty, and DUM-E might roll over it." Tony glanced around the room and decided that he could do without the car parts table right now. He hadn't worked on one of his cars in months; it's not like the table was seeing a lot of use these days. 

* * *

Being friends with Winter and not Bucky was weird. He'd see their body from behind and have to pause to figure out who it was before deciding how to greet him. If it was Winter, he could start right in about the Rubik's Cube that DUM-E had accidentally broken but he'd already ordered a replacement for him so he shouldn't be missing it for long. If it was Bucky, he'd say an awkward, "Hey, how's it going," and keep walking. 

Winter was fun, if a bit odd. Not that Tony was one to talk. Where Tony had his... everything (food preferences, inability to drink certain things if he was in a certain mood, not being able to grab things from someone else's hands, etc.), Winter had his sense of personal space in very specific situations and his puzzles that he disliked any help with. Tony had been allowed to help with exactly one jigsaw puzzle, and he'd had to wait until Winter specifically invited him; he didn't mind it. If anything, it made it easier to know exactly what Winter wanted from him when. 

Of course, after Tony got invited to help with the puzzle once, he started to get suspicious. Did Winter like him? Like him as in want to date him? Winter was one of his best friends, but unfortunately, he was in the same category as Rhodey: ride or die, but not a possibility for a relationship. The best way to deal with it was to ask straight out, right? Right. 

"Hey Winter?" 

"Hm?" 

"Can I ask you something?" 

Winter looked up, all innocent wide eyes, and nodded. 

"Are you interested in me? Like, romantically?" 

Winter wrinkled his nose, and Tony felt immediate relief. "No." 

"Okay, that's great, I just wanted to check." 

Winter cocked his head. 

"I'm not interested in you, but I was worried that you would be in me. If that was the case, I wanted to let you know early on that it wasn't going to happen." 

Winter nodded, then went back to his word search. He said that he didn't like them very much, but they helped him with written English. Besides, he'd talked Tony into doing crosswords with him sometimes, and the book they came in had both so he might as well complete them. 

* * *

In the end, Tony realized that no one else was aware of Winter because they were in a fight against some giant squid that had pulled themselves out of the ocean, and everything went to hell in a handbasket. In a hurry. Blunt force was the only thing really working because their skin was too thick for bullets to penetrate, and Tony got fucking swallowed. Yep, that's right. _Swallowed_ by a _giant squid_ while he was on _land_. If that got put on his tombstone, he was going to come back to life just to change it because what the fuck guys? 

The HUD was going haywire, Jarvis couldn't cut through the interference that a giant squid's stomach made, and Tony was in the middle of panicking about the lack of air and turning on the lasers in the arms with wild movements. 

The squid's body shifted with a disgusting squelch, and Tony proceeded to get buried under its corpse. The suit was taking hits and he let out a scream as his arm bent the wrong way. Fucking hell, this was not his day. The HUD was sputtering back to life around him, and it looked like the comms were back online. "Testing one two?" he gasped, his casual words at odds with the pain he knew was in his voice. 

"Iron Man," Steve said, sounding relieved. "Status?" 

"Down for the count," he grunted. "And I could use some help getting out of here when you're done." 

"Do you need medical?" 

"Not at the moment." 

"We'll try to wrap this up quickly," he said, but they had already been trying to wrap it up quickly before he got swallowed, so he wasn't betting on this actually speeding them up any. 

Tony laid there for a while, listening to the chatter of everybody talking to each other, and all it really told him was that there wasn't much progress being made. Since all he was doing was listening, he noticed when Bucky didn't respond in a spot where he normally would have. 

Steve was paying pretty close attention, so it was only a minute after they declared the fight done that he asked, "Bucky, what's your location?" No answer. "Buck? Does anyone have a twenty on him?" 

"Stop worrying," Winter grumbled. 

"Where are you? Why didn't you respond?" 

"I'm getting Tony," was all he said, but Tony knew it was him because Winter summarily refused to respond to the names 'Bucky', 'Barnes', and 'Sergeant'. 

"No complaints here," Tony chimed in. "Squid guts really stink. I think I'm going to vomit as soon as I get the helmet off because this is one of the worst things in the world, and I say that without an ounce of exaggeration." 

"Tell me if it gets worse," Winter said. 

"What, the smell? I don't think that's going to get worse any time soon since this thing's been dead for a while now. On an unrelated note, is anybody else craving sushi? I could really go for some sushi right now." 

"The pain," Winter corrected, and Tony was about to ask why when he felt the squid's body shift. 

"So far so good." 

Winter grunted. 

It took them three minutes twenty nine seconds to get him out, and right around the two minute mark was when the process started speeding up. Either Winter employed a new method, or it was when everyone got there to help. Tony was going to choose to believe it was the second one, because if they let him rot under fish guts, he was going to have a few choice words for them. He'd also bonk Steve on the head with a newspaper, because real admonishment didn't work on him but joking ones did. 

The light of day was visible once more, but Tony didn't move. "Anybody wanna give me a hand? A nice princess carry to medical, maybe?" 

Winter stepped forward and scooped him up even though Tony had been half-joking. 

"My hero," Tony said, putting the back his uninjured hand on his forehead in a facsimile of swooning. Tony was looking forward to some pain pills, a shower, and then a soak in the tub because if there was ever a time to decide he deserved pampering, it was after getting swallowed by a giant squid and then sitting in its corpse for half an hour while his team took their sweet time getting him. "Thanks you saving me from becoming a part of the sushi bar. I'd give you a kiss, but I don't think you want to get any more covered in this gunk than you already are." 

"Tony," Natasha said, her voice stern. 

He looked over at her in confusion-- that was far from the worst thing he'd ever said, it wasn't deserving of that tone. Then his eyes went wide because she had a gun out and was pointing it right at Winter. Winter looked rather unconcerned by this. 

"Uh, Nat?" Clint said. "I know you and Bucky have issues, but this isn't-" 

"That's not Bucky," she said. 

Clint frowned in confusion, but Tony just said, "Yeah, it's Winter." 

"What?" 

"Winter? Our resident baker and puzzle solver? Mostly a baker, no offense, those banana things were amazing. Why are you all looking at me like that?" he asked, because they were all staring at him like he was speaking a language known only to himself. 

"You know him? And you know he's not Bucky?" Natasha asked incredulously. She slowly lowered her gun. 

"Uh, yeah?"

"Why didn't you tell someone?" Steve asked, well on his way to freaking out. 

"Because you all knew?" he said, voice lilting up at the end. He had been one hundred percent sure that they all knew, but now he was sitting more at like, two percent. 

"Uhh, no," Clint said. "I'm pretty sure you're the only what that knew. Show of hands, who else knew?" 

Predictably, everyone's hands stayed down. 

"Phil's totally going to freak when I tell him." 

"Why would you tell him?" Thor asked. 

"Our pillow talk gets boring, I gotta spice it up sometimes." 

"I don't think telling him about the continued existence of an ex-Hydra assassin is going to make him want to stay in bed with you," Natasha said. 

Steve ignored them. "Is Bucky- I mean, is Bucky okay? He's not... in pain or anything right now, is he?" 

"He's fine," Winter answered neutrally. "Are we taking Tony to medical or not?" 

Steve shook himself. "Right. Um, Winter are you okay carrying him?" 

He gave a single nod. 

"Good. Avengers, let's load up and get going." 

"Not that I mind being carried around like a princess, what with it being my idea and everything" Tony said, "but was anybody planning on asking me if I _could_ walk? Because I can." 

"No," Steve said, his tone leaving no room for an argument-- not that Tony had let that stop him in the past. "You could be missing both legs and insist that you could walk on your own. Winter, don't believe him if he tries to convince you otherwise." The name sounded a little strange in his mouth, but that Steve was trying at all was good. Tony had been a little worried that the reason he never saw Winter around everyone else was because Steve didn't like him. 

Clint and Nat hopped up to the cockpit, and everybody else took their positions at the sides. 

Tony thought about telling Steve that Winter knew him well enough already to not believe that sort of lie, but he figured that maybe if he stayed quiet long enough, they'd forget about it and he could sneak off to medical on his own without everyone keeping vigil like they expected for him to drop dead. 

* * *

Tony was in the process of healing-- being _forced_ to heal, like jesus did they all plot behind his back to keep him locked down like this or was it a coincidence?-- and he decided that now was as good a time as any to have a few conversations. Yeah, talking. Ugh. He was becoming a bonafide grown-up and it was weird (there was a little voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Pepper reminding him that he'd been an adult for decades now, on top of being a superhero and owning a largely successful company). But whatever. 

The point was that Winter still had the whole Soldier vibe going on and could kill someone in fifty different ways without trying, but when it came to being his own person, he was still pretty new. Tony wasn't about to go around setting up playdates, but he figured that there were a few people that could do with a solid talking-to about how they were going to act around him. 

First stop was Steve, simply because Winter was sharing a body with his boyfriend, and everyone knew that Steve didn't deal well when he thought about Bucky's time with Hydra. ('Bucky's time with Hydra', god that made it sound like he popped over to them and worked for a while instead of being kidnapped and brainwashed.) Tony made sure that Bucky was gone at the time before ever so casually sliding up to him. 

Okay maybe it wasn't as casual as he hoped, because Steve was frowning at him in open concern. "Are you okay?" 

Make that _extremely_ not casual. Damn it. Tony grumpily crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah, I'm fine. I wanted to talk to you about Winter." 

"Alright," Steve said easily. "What's up?" 

Tony blinked at his calm tone. And it was real calm, not a fake calm to try and put Tony's mind at ease. "Are you okay with him?" 

The corner of Steve's mouth turned down, and that was more like the reaction that Tony had been expecting. "There's nothing I can do about it. He's here, and we all have to get used to it." A pause, then he added, "I'm worried about Bucky. He thought he was going crazy, and now he's worried that Winter will take him over completely." 

"Winter wouldn't do that." 

"Try telling Bucky that," Steve muttered. 

"Well I could try, but I think he'd take it better if it came from someone he trusts a bit more." 

Tony didn't like the assessing look Steve gave him as a response. Steve was silent for a minute as he mulled it over, but frankly, Tony didn't think he'd said anything thought provoking enough to warrant this. "You're worried about him," he said in the end. 

"Worried about who?" It sounded like a dumb evasion, but Tony had gotten bored of waiting after ten seconds and started thinking about the next iteration of the Iron Man armor. Steve's statement yanked him back out of his head, but that didn't mean he remembered where they left off. 

"Winter. Are you doing this shovel talk with everyone?" 

"What? No." If Steve was okay with it, the only other person he'd really need to talk to was Natasha. Talking to Clint would be an effort in futility, but Natasha could get through to him. Besides, Clint was reactionary on Natasha’s behalf, so it Natasha was okay with Winter, then Clint would be too. 

"Uh-huh," Steve said, looking like he didn't believe that for a second. 

Tony went straight from his talk with Steve to go talk to Natasha. She was in the gym, which wasn't surprising. "Have you ever gone into professional gymnastics?" he asked when he came in and saw her stretching on the mats. "Cause if the spy thing ever dries up, I think you'd be able to have a good career there." 

"Being flexible isn't the same as gymnastics," was all Natasha had to say about his suggestion. "Is there a reason you're here?" He wasn't in workout clothes, which was a dead giveaway for ulterior motives. 

"I wanted to talk to you." 

"Mmhmm." 

"About Winter." 

Natasha's eyes flickered over to him. "I'm listening." 

"He's not the same Winter Soldier you knew back in the day." 

"Hmm." She wasn't agreeing or disagreeing. Neutrality. She was pretty good at feigning that, even after all their time on the team together. 

"I know it might be complicated." 

She hummed again, in that same neutral way. She was waiting for him to get to the point. She switched positions and slowly leaned into it. 

"I need to know whether you're going to freak out on him or not. I know, I know, you're a trained spy, you don't 'freak out'. Whatever freaking out would be for someone like you, is what I mean. You don't need to be on your guard around him. We're all on the same team, and he should feel safe here." 

"You care about him," was all she said to that. 

No point in denying it. "I do. He might be an assassin, but he wasn't doing it of sound mind." 

"I know." 

"So you aren't going to... I dunno. Cause problems? I don't think you'd do it on purpose, but if you see him as a risk and act like it, he'll react and it'll be a mess that none of us need." 

Natasha didn't respond right away. She was deliberate with her words. The same way Winter was, now that Tony thought about it. "I think that I'll talk to him before attempting to promise you anything. I don't know how his memory is." 

"Would there be something wrong with his memory?" 

"Back when we knew each other, there were gaps, occasionally. If he is missing certain memories, he might not trust me." 

"And he'd trust you if he did remember everything?" 

"Working for Hydra was not as clear cut back then," she said, a touch dryly. "It almost felt the same as being an Avenger. Part of a team, all that." 

That was bending the truth a lot more than she usually did, but Tony figured it was good enough. "You'll be fine if he's around," he said, needing to double check. 

"I'll talk to him," she replied, and Tony rolled his eyes. It hadn't been this hard to get a flat answer out of her since she first started on the team. 

"Well, have fun with that. You should know: if it comes to a war between the two of you, I'm on his side." 

Natasha snorted. "I would expect nothing else from you." She let out a deep breath. "Stop worrying, Tony. Winter and I have history, but it's not the sort that will make us try to kill each other." 

Tony wasn't entirely sure he believed that, but he said, "Okay. Good. Don’t be afraid to mention that to Clint. I get the feeling that if he tries to stab Winter like he did Bucky, we won’t like the end result." 

* * *

Winter, when she found him, was working on a puzzle in Tony's workshop. It was a sprawling monster of a puzzle, with the border taking up the majority of a large table. A quick glance told her that half the background was black, and she was glad that she wasn't here to help him work on it. It wasn’t one of her puzzles; hers tended towards the more colorful variety since it entertained her more that way. 

She'd seen Bucky earlier today, and he had seemed to be aggressively not thinking about the situation. If he was the same way tomorrow, she'd have to talk to Steve about it. 

This was obviously Winter. Not only because he was willingly in the 'shop and doing a puzzle, but the way he held himself was completely different. Familiar. He didn't look over at her when she walked in, but he knew that she was there. He probably knew it was her just from the sound of her footsteps. "How's the puzzle going?" she asked before she got too close. Getting too close could make him nervous, and for all that she'd brushed Tony off before, she knew that she should keep her distance. At first, at least. 

"Slow," he said. 

"Can I help?" 

He looked at her now. "You came here to help me with a puzzle?" he asked disbelievingly. He was slightly hunched over the puzzle now, as if defending it. That was a clear answer to her question, and it was just as well since she had come here for another reason. 

"No," she admitted, "but I thought we should talk." 

"You thought? Or Tony thought?" 

"Tony talked to me, but talking to _you_ was my idea. I was tense around Bucky when he first came here because I thought he was going to be like you." 

Winter grunted and turned his attention back to the puzzle in front of him. 

"How much do you remember?" 

"...Everything," he admitted quietly. There wasn't much to be happy about for remembering all of that. She almost wished that he didn't have to remember all of it since he hadn't had much of a choice for what he was doing back then. Almost. 

"Is that good?" 

He gave a small, one-shouldered shrug. “Tony helped me get my memories back.” 

"I'm glad you have a friend," she said. "Have you considered expanding that list? More than one friend would be good for you." 

He gave a grunt to confirm that he heard her. He didn't say anything for a while, organizing the pieces in front of him. "Friends take time. I don't have time for more than Tony." 

"You could talk to Bucky about it." 

"I won't." 

"Hm." She stood there for a moment longer. "Well, if you're not busy the next time you're out, maybe we could watch a movie. There's one I think you'd like." 

He grunted again, and she knew that was the best answer she was going to get out of him. She left the workshop, nodding to Tony as she passed him in the hallway. Tony frowned a little when he saw her, but he kept walking without missing a step. "Were you and Natasha talking?" he asked. Winter looked the same as he always did when he was working on a puzzle: intense, focused, and like he hadn't moved in the past three hours. 

"Yes." 

"Huh. Good talk?" 

"She invited me to watch a movie." 

"You could've said yes." 

"Could have," Winter agreed and didn't elaborate. 

Tony gave a mental shrug and pulled up his main project. He had a design to get done for SI, and if Winter decided that he wanted to talk about it, he knew that it wouldn't bother Tony if he brought it up. 

* * *

Bucky and Winter had a strange way of communicating. Despite sharing a body, they didn't get to swap thoughts. Or at least, they didn't know how to do it if it _were_ possible. The closest they had to telepathic communication right now was when one of them pulled away from having control or tried to push forward. So if they wanted to communicate something specific to the other, they had to leave a note. It couldn't just be something simple on a sticky-note because there were too many other people around who might think it was for them. So they wrote notes, put them in honest to god envelopes, labeled them, and left them lying around after they wrote them because it wasn’t always before a switch that they remembered what they wanted to say. Bucky slept next to Steve, but Winter didn't go to their room unless he absolutely had to-- which, at last count, had been once because Bucky had taken out his favorite knife and left it there. 

All of this was to say that Bucky pulled back earlier than Winter had been expecting, and there was a letter on the table in front of him, waiting for him to read it. 

**Hey Winter. I'm not going to lie, I don't really like sharing a body, but there's nothing either of us can do about it. Waiting around to see if you're going to try and over take me completely is making me paranoid-- even though Steve and Tony have both told me that you would never do that (I believe Tony more than Steve since Steve would tell me just about anything to make me calm down and Tony knows you better than anyone else here). Anyways, I was thinking we could come up with a schedule instead of this testing back and forth bullshit we've been doing until now. I'd like to get nights and early mornings so that I can spend time with Steve. Not waking up next to him makes me anxious, and I know he misses me when he goes to sleep. Let me know if you have any preferences for time slots. Or whatever the fuck we're going to call it. Let me know. Thanks.**

Winter stared at the piece of paper for a while, then he flipped it over and grabbed the pen Bucky had left. 

**_Bucky- I can cover battles if you want, but we should only have one of us for that. Our styles are too different for us to switch halfway through like we did last time._ **

Of course, Winter was the one that had pushed forward that time. He hadn't meant to scare Bucky or out himself like that, but Tony had needed help and no one had been doing a damn thing about it. He didn't know what to do about the rest of it. Bucky was offering him guaranteed time, and he didn't know what to do with it. He didn't know how to have a life here that was more than stolen moments into Tony's workshop. With time of his own, he could make plans. He could watch that movie with Natasha. Not that he was certain he wanted to do that, but he would have the option. 

**_I want one night a week. You can pick the day._ **

He left it at that because it was the only thing he knew for sure that he wanted. He didn't need time every single day, but he had stuff he wanted to do at night. Once a week would be sufficient for that. The occasional lunch with Tony might be nice, but Tony was busy; he wasn’t going to try and plan for that. 

* * *

Clint poked his head in. He had this way of acting like he was an idiot, but Winter knew better. Maybe it was a facade he put on, or maybe it was actually how he was and it felt at odds with how dangerous he was. Either way, Winter didn't trust it, and he didn't trust _him_. He was Natasha's best friend, which would automatically put him on alert even without the possible act he was putting on. "Winter, is that you?" 

"Yes," Winter said, more than a touch of frost in his tone. It's not like he hated Clint. Hating him would imply Clint did things he didn't like instead of the truth, which was that Clint was a threat-- and not one he was certain he'd survive if it came down to it. Natasha was a threat in the same way, but he believed that she wouldn't act on it. He didn't know Clint well enough to judge that, but he remembered the way Clint had stabbed Bucky's hand with no hesitation when he thought it was necessary. 

"Hey," Clint said, stepping completely in the room. He didn't move closer than that, which was a smart decision. "I wanted to talk to you a little." 

Winter stared at him. 

"Nat says you're good now so I shouldn't worry, but it's not that easy to turn off. I know how much the Red Room fucked with her, and I blame you for that. You weren't in total control, whatever, I still think of you as being guilty. We're not gonna be friends, but I think I could work on the same team as you. If it comes to that. Bucky came to talk to me the other day, and he hasn't decided what he wants to do about his spot on the Avengers. I'm sure Tony could fill you in on the whole application process for becoming an Avenger, but it gets a little muddy with Bucky already on the team and you guys sharing a body." 

Winter stayed silent, because so far, Clint hadn't said anything he didn't already know. 

"What I mean to say is that if you're cool with everyone here, then I'm cool. Do we understand each other?" 

Winter nodded. 

"Awesome," Clint said with an easy-going grin, then left. 

Winter relaxed again and turned back to the screen. He was having to catch up on... pretty much everything. Being a Hydra assassin hadn't lended itself to a balanced education, and he was missing large gaps in his knowledge that everyone thought he should know. 

* * *

Winter had never met Bruce before. Bucky hadn't talked with him much either, which made him feel more like a stranger than the rest of the team. From what little he knew about him, Bruce liked to keep to himself. Tony had mentioned Bruce in passing, but he hadn't exactly given Winter a file outlining his personality quirks and general disposition. Winter wasn't antisocial-- no matter _what_ Natasha said-- but he never planned on being alone with Bruce to solve his ignorance. 

In the end, he didn't get a choice because Bruce was working with Tony while Winter unboxed a new puzzle-- Jarvis kept ordering him new ones and he wasn't going to complain unless he got tired of it. Then Tony got called away to help Pepper with something, and they were left alone. 

There was a minute of silence following Tony's departure. There hadn't been music going because Bruce didn't like it, so there was nothing to fill the space between them. A quick glance at Bruce made it obvious that he was mulling over whether or not he wanted to strike up a conversation or let it be. 

"I don't think we ever officially met," Bruce said quietly. His voice carried in the metal and concrete that made up the workshop, and with enhanced hearing, Winter had no trouble hearing him. Bruce hadn't been at the original team meeting after Bucky was back. Winter used to peek through Bucky's eyes every now and then so he would know what was going when he wasn't around, but he'd had to stop since then. Evidently, Bucky was uncomfortable with that. How he was more uncomfortable with that than Winter having time being in control, he didn't know. 

"No," Winter agreed. 

"You can call Bruce. Or Doctor Banner if you're one of those people that thinks you can't call me by my first name unless we're friends." 

"I'm Winter." 

"Tony warned me that you don't like help with your puzzles." 

Winter grunted. It's not that he was automatically against the idea of someone joining him and enjoying themselves, but he had a specific order for everything. If someone else got their hands on his pieces, they'd mess it up, and it took ages to get it back the way it should be. 

"I guess we don't need to worry about team bonding." 

"Bucky likes being on the team." 

"You don't?" 

Winter grunted again. He liked being able to help, and he liked the idea of working on the same team as Tony. Being an Avenger sounded like a massive headache that he didn't need. He would be happy with the proposed of one night a week. An afternoon every once in a while would be nice, but he wasn't going to fight Bucky over it. Like it or not-- and he did _not_ \-- it had been Bucky's body first. Winter was used to restrictions; Bucky wasn't. 

Bruce looked at him for a moment longer, then shrugged and turned back to his work. "I wouldn't mind hanging with you if you ever wanted to try." 

"I'll think about it," Winter said. 

Bruce nodded to himself, and they didn't say anything else. It was a comfortable silence, unlike the first one that had fallen on them following Tony's departure. 

* * *

**Winter,**

**Which night do you want? And I was thinking that we could switch afternoons. One of us: Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday. The other: Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Alternate Saturdays for the whole day? And you can have Monday and Wednesday nights if you want. Steve's normally doing stuff late those days so I won't miss much if you're out.**

**-Bucky**

**_I can do M/W/F_ **

**Cool. I'd like this Saturday-- Steve planned a date**

**_Fine._ **

* * *

"That's good, right?" Tony asked. "That you have a schedule?" 

Winter shrugged. 

"I'm not a big fan of schedules because trying to force the genius to flow never works, but in terms of sharing a body, I feel like this could be good. Might be easier if you switched whole days instead of sections of time, but maybe it'll work for you guys." 

"He wants to sleep next to Rogers." 

"Ah. So he wants to do that just about every day, and of course you don't want to wake up with that, so... I see. I still feel like it's messy." 

"It's working so far," Winter pointed out. Not because he was necessarily a fan of this, but because he finally felt at ease capitulating to Natasha's insistence of a movie night. Of course, he'd dragged Tony along so they wouldn't be alone, but she still seemed happy that this was happening. 

Natasha, like Tony, had taken it upon herself to help Winter experience new things. So she was making popcorn and they were going to watch a murder mystery movie. She came back in with a massive bowl and sat on Tony's other side. Winter paused for a moment, then slowly curled up against Tony's side. Natasha did the same after a minute when the opening credits finished rolling. 

"Is there a sign on me that says 'Russian ex-assassins please cuddle'?" Tony asked, a touch incredulously. He didn't feel tense or the least bit uncomfortable though, so Winter didn't move. 

"Yes," Natasha said, voice flat. 

"I expect the two of you to protect me from any other suitors that might appear," he said, tossing some popcorn in his mouth. It was on his lap for easiest access. 

“I’ll protect you,” Winter said. He wasn’t sure how much he was joking; it didn’t matter. 


End file.
